Stock levels
Orders from our website continue to ship without issue and we are able to keep the stock at our fulfillment contractor at sufficient levels.
Amazon.com has opened up the ability to send restock for non-essentials, but they have placed limits on restocking shipments on items they consider to sufficiently stocked, which are levels below what we prefer.
We have always tried to aim for a 3-months supply on hand with Amazon.com when we plan restocking shipment quantities; we typically check stock levels once a month, it typically takes a month for items to get into stock, and that gives us an extra month buffer in case of issues (like a global pandemic).
Now it seems they really only want you to have a months inventory on hand, so they limit incoming inventory until the stock levels are below something like a 30 day supply, and they limit the amount you can send. The bottom line is that some of our Amazon.com listed items may end up out of stock over the next month or two.
Shipping speed
As anyone that has been buying from Amazon.com over the last two month knows, the prime shipping landscape has changed dramatically. While some items are shipping faster now than a month ago, for many items, delivery is still quoted at two weeks or more, and many items take 1-3 weeks to arrive. The upside is my children are learning to be more patient. 🙂
Shipments from our website on the other hand typically ship the next business day and are for the most part sent USPS first class mail. In normal times, the quoted delivery time for first class mail to anywhere in the US is 1-3 days. The USPS is now quoting 3-4 days for this service, which is still not bad.
So if you order from our website, you will pay a little more for shipping, but will get it there faster.
USPS delivery
But beware that there is an increased incidence of mis-delivery by USPS postal carriers. I’ve experienced this personally with packages and letter mail delivered to the wrong address on our street or the wrong street entirely, and we’ve had customer reports of missing packages. I suspect this is due to some USPS personnel calling in sick for personal safety reasons, and being replaced by personnel less experienced with a particular route.
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